Surviving, thriving: Three generations lose homes in storm

Nov. 21, 2012

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@KenSerranoAPP

Rebecca O'Neill of Union Beach, who lost her Prospect Avenue home during Sandy, plays with her daughters (left) Keira, 16 months, and (right) Abigael, 3, in their family's temporary West Keansburg residence Wednesday. Rebecca, as well as her two aunts, mother, grandmother and brother, lost homes in Union Beach during Sandy. / Tanya Breen/staff photographer

Margaret Knichel of Union Beach looks for any of her son, Shawn Knichel's personal belongings near his Brook Avenue home, which was destroyed during Sandy, with her daughter Rebecca O'Neill of Union Beach on Nov. 1. / Tanya Breen/staff photographer

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The backyard birthday parties for the babies, the Thanksgiving feasts after which people pored over Black Friday circulars and the spur-of-the-moment poker tournaments on Sundays: Those were the good times that rolled in these places.

But now the homes of Rebecca O’Neill, a 34-year-old mother of four, her brother, her mother, her grandmother and two aunts — all from the waterfront streets of Union Beach — lay flooded or damaged or utterly destroyed.

Holidays can sometimes cast a painful light on lost things, lost times and lost people. But O’Neill’s family has found a way to carry on in good cheer. The large family — all 70 of them — has rented a hall to host Thanksgiving dinner.

“We just invited everybody and everybody is bringing a dish,” she said.

Finding the hall was not easy, she said. She feels lucky to have landed this one, at the North Centerville Volunteer Fire Company No. 1 in Hazlet.

It included a condition. A member of the company had to be a part of the celebration. A young firefighter volunteered, O’Neill said.

“It’s awesome that he would do this for us,” she said.

In the past, relatives in the neighborhood would host the same holidays each year at their homes. Thanksgiving was an overflowing affair.

When O’Neill got married in 2008, she started holding a smaller Thanksgiving feast of her own for in-laws and immediate family.

As her family grew, so did the numbers of parties she hosted.

“We had four huge rocking parties in my yard this year,” she said, referring to two birthdays, a graduation party and a baptism celebration.

That’s on top of the informal gatherings, like Sunday dinners.

“If I call one person, 40 of us show up,” she said.

Then came Sandy.

The backyard where all that merriment happened is now the resting place of other people’s roofs.

But Thanksgiving for O’Neill is not the setting, so much, as the celebration.

“It’s one of those things you can’t put into words,” she said. “When you’re with family, you feel loved. It brings back the childhood comfort – the safety and security. And you don’t have to do anything – eat and watch football.”

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O’Neill weighed the damage from Sandy in memories.

She lost 15 years of photos of her children and other family members in her Prospect Street home. Her mother lost 34 years of the same, and so on.

“Fifteen years of everything I’ve had as long as I’ve been a mom,” she said.

And Sandy had a sharper, more immediate effect when O’Neill moved in with relatives. There wasn’t enough room for everyone, she said.

O’Neill had to separate her children, the two teenagers moving in with their father and O’Neill, her husband, Sean O’Neill, and their two young children moving in with his relatives.

“It broke my heart,” O’Neill said, fighting back tears. “Every day I would cry. I want all my kids under one roof so I can hug them and kiss them goodnight. You never don’t want to see your kids.”

They were reunited Nov. 15, when O’Neill and her family moved into a rental home in West Keansburg.

The first thing she did was hang up her remaining family photos on the bare walls.

She added: “How is it supposed to feel like home if you’re not surrounded by family?”